Beloved
by Kalliel
Summary: Anko is fifteen when she commits her first undocumented felony. Itachi is nearly twenty when he commits his last. Anko/Itachi, erotic asphyxiation.


**Beloved**  
_Naruto fan fiction_

**Genre:** horror, pre-series  
**Rating:** R for sexuality, violence, and general creepiness  
**Pairing: **Anko/Itachi  
**Word Count: **4900 or so  
**Warnings: **uh, shouta, I guess; NCS; erotic asphyxiation  
**Summary: **Anko is fifteen when she commits her first undocumented felony. Itachi is nearly twenty when he commits his last.  
**Notes:** Written for Anat Astarte's birthday! I told her that one day I would attempt to write an Itachi with more sexual appeal/drive than a wet sandbag (where, tragically, he defaults, in my mind). I tried, I really did.

And I'm sorry it's so late! I tried to finish it by midnight, but apparently that didn't work out. D:

* * *

_"There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind – wrapped tight like skin. Then there is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far off place."_

**Beloved**, Toni Morrison

* * *

ANKO IS FIFTEEN when she commits her first undocumented felony.

_(--Because it's not as impressive when you get caught, and not as fun when you are lauded for your (horrific) accomplishments. Anko's been chuunin for three years and mistress of the forbidden for longer still--)_

Itachi is eight.

IT BEGINS BEFORE THAT, of course. Three years prior, Konoha loses their visionary leader, Namikaze Minato; Anko loses Orochimaru. The memories are pleasant for neither. Konoha blames the kyuubi, and Anko blames the man behind it.

_(--Because Anko _knows_, knows something most of Konoha does not. The knowledge festers in her sans words or names, but the kyuubi was hardly a freak accident. She sees it in Orochimaru's eyes the day he leaves (late March; the trees are in full bloom but they are dying, dying slowly). The taste of secrets is on his lips when he kisses her goodbye, but like so many other things, he imparts only a bald, sensory intuition, and none of the history. There's a seal seared into her neck from another such encounter, the pain of which Anko is not like to forget.)_

Orochimaru walks out. Anko is left to sort out the history on her own.

What she finds is mostly myth (and what of Konoha isn't? she wonders)--Uchiha Madara. Anko has little regard for the Uchiha clan and their tiresome dynamics, but the story of a man with eyes that could bring demons to their knees, a man desperate for eternity, is too tantalizing to pass by.

She does not know how Orochimaru tamed the serpent, Manda, though she has seen him and it has nothing to do with loyalty.

She does not know the body-stealing jutsu, though she knows it gives her sensei youth eternal (almost).

She does not know why she was left behind, but.

One look at Itachi in the field (she is fifteen, a seasoned chuunin with prospects of making jounin soon if _only-_- Well. There are some concerns.

Itachi is eight and a genin still. But he has the sharingan--more than that, he can control it. And today as it turns out, his team doesn't need its chuunin reinforcements after all. That much Anko sees).

Uchiha Itachi.

One look, and it all doesn't seem so far fetched. She knows this much: if Orochimaru returns to Konoha, it will not be for her.

ITACHI IS SLOW TO HEED ORDERS. He is even slower to give them. He thinks before he acts, because he does not yet understand that these two things cannot be separate. The body is a physical construct, imbued with thought. Reflex. There is no dialogue between mind and body, for they are one.

Kakashi rolls his eyes toward her, motions comically retarded; a silent jest at Anko's expense. He agrees that split seconds are important. He disagrees that in Itachi's case, it matters. And he questions why, suddenly, Anko gives a fuck. (He doesn't word it quite that way.)

She's a bit young to be watching time quite so closely, he says. Which is completely beside the point and most definitely a deflection, so Anko ignores him.

She knows Itachi's potential. She knows that despite her criticisms, he follows orders better than she ever could. There are elements inside her she cannot control, even if she tried, so she lets them run their wild course and laughs when people suggest she do otherwise. She knows what Orochimaru wanted, and she knows that it was not her.

What she does not fucking understand is why Orochimaru let her believe it was.

"Look who's planning to live forever." Her eyes narrow, but she slides her tongue along her bottom lip, grins wickedly. She veils her frustrations.

It's one of those things that can cut a dialogue clean in two, things Anko inevitably says or does--first unintentionally. Then, upon witnessing the effect, stows away for future use. Nothing lasts long, least of all conversations (though Kakashi is one of the best; he's just as bizarre as she is, and Anko doesn't enjoy being bested at her own game so she'll keep him close until she's satisfied she's won), but she prefers they end on her terms.

Kakashi's already lived forever. He's outlived his loved ones, and that's what forever is.

This time, it's Anko who walks out.

ANKO CONTINUES HER DISCOURSE ALONE. She is, after all, alone. Has been, for three years. Maybe she always has; what does she know? Tonight, the silence is of her choosing. Tonight, it is not abandonment.

She does not care overly for Orochimaru's person. Hungry for his arts and eager to prove her worth, perhaps. (Though now the idea repulses her. She wants nothing of his tricks, nor of the idea her _worth _need be proven.)

She is smarter than that.

If something is not tangible, or cannot be expressed through action, she has come to believe it is a waste of time. Love is one of these things. Because if love is not synonymous with sex, when of what use is it, really? Hate is more of a mixed bag; plenty of changes have been wrought from hate. (Many more have been carried out in the name of love, to be sure, but most have failed.)

Anko does not hate Itachi. He's hardly a polarizing character (at least, not yet--but then, neither was she). But she does not see why that would stop her.

SHE IS NOT OROCHIMARU, but better than any before her, she has learned his trade.

She does not speak; her stare alone commands he follow her. One, two seconds, and he complies. (He still thinks before he acts.)

Their destination is not of any great significance to Anko, and she ends up underneath a bridge, just outside the gates of Konoha. It's high enough that a small raft could sail beneath it, though by now it's late September and the creekbed has been dry for some time. A crust of algae and water-smooth rocks coats the ground, but that is all.

"Uchiha."

"Anko sempai," he returns.

"Tell me what you know of Orochimaru."

"You."

And this startles Anko somewhat; what in hell was that supposed to mean? Itachi steps gingerly onto the would-be riverbed, testing the stability of the floor; a mindless habit, most likely, but she cannot help but feel that he is planning, laying traps and pitfalls.

But this is her trap. And it wasn't planned at all. "Explain," she barks, as though they're orders from the top.

"You were his student. It shows." Itachi answers with more bizarre nonsense. "Beyond that, the things we all are taught at Academy. Sannin. Outlaw. A poor example and a poorer teacher." He turns to her then, his head cocked slightly, dark eyes probing.

Anko ignores his insult. "And of Uchiha Madara?"

Itachi twitches involuntarily. He looks confused; whether it is because she knows his family history, or because _he_ does not, is unclear.

"I... do not know that name." _But I will soon_, his tone implies.

Anko will make him doubt that. Shadow-quick, she shoves him under the bridge. Her nails dig into the flesh of his arm when she swings him around--he is astonishingly soft and, momentarily stunned by both her violence and the force with which she implemented it, very small. At the back of her mind, Anko knows he is only a child, barely out of Academy. She knows that what she is about to do will accomplish nothing, solve nothing, for her. But again, she does not see why that should stop her.

Anko leaps to his back, pinning him before he makes any move to rise. Her thighs form a vicegrip just below his arms, while her fingers form hand signs, so fast they are almost singing. By present standards, Orochimaru is likely regarded as a very poor teacher, indeed, but Anko does not regret her education. (It is one of few things she doesn't.) Snakes burst from her palms and twine themselves around Itachi's body; fangs trail against the white of his shoulders before keeping poised at his neck. She turns him around.

Blood, a bead on his lip from his fall, breaks. Dribbles into the crease of his mouth between two tightly pursed lips. Anko leans down so close that it is the only thing she can smell--more than the sulfurous algae deposits, more than the rush-sweat that spills into the air and makes it heavy-thick. It tastes even sweeter than it smells, when Anko's tongue darts out to catch a newly beading drop; she slides her tongue between his lips to claim the rest.

"Don't breathe too harshly, Itachi; my snakes make no adjustments for your mistakes." Anko balances herself with a hand on his chest, and his breath snaps out of him with a wet gasp. It's the sound things make when they're thrown against a wall, just before they die. Unlike these things, Anko keeps his ribs intact. She has other designs.

The shirt, a simple pull-over, is troublesome, for the simple fact that there are snakes hugging it to Itachi's body. Anko rolls her eyes; problems of practicality when things are left unplanned. She flips a small knife from a pouch strapped across her thigh and begins to saw through the black fabric--it curls away from her blade like cinders from fire. (She will find him a new shirt before she sends him home, then.)

When she is done, she dips down to catch another drop of blood from Itachi's lips. She loves the jagged roughness of his lip where the blood comes up. From his lips, she guides her tongue down his chin, his neck, all the while her own fangs poised for striking. Itachi's eyes follow her as best they can, and Anko keeps his gaze. His breaths are quick and shallow--but even, not unlike a rabbit's (and not a particularly panicked one). Controlled.

The rest of him is not as obedient. As Anko slithers slowly lower, faint kisses with her lips and tongue, Itachi's muscles scream. Writhe.

She is flat on top of him now, legs wound around Itachi's own to keep him from kicking. Her hips grind against his pelvis as she straddles his cock, but she does not undress it. She is not interested. Itachi is eight years old, and the most stunning part of him is his broken lip coated with blood.

Her snakes move of their own accord; for all they know, this boy is prey, and sooner or later Anko will let them have their way.

He needn't fear their fangs, though--they are, after all, constrictors.

Itachi's fingers begin to lose their color.

"Anko sempai." The words come in an exhalation, brief and staccato. _Why_, he needs to know but he does not want to ask.

Anko has no answer for him.

There is a history, of course. A life leading up to this moment--or rather, two. But in the end, Anko doubts that neither Orochimaru nor Uchiha Madara, nor the kyuubi nor his leaving nor her abandonment nor Itachi's promise nor anything ianything/i that has brought them to this moment contributes directly to--

This time, this place. It's as though reason is lost in the confusion.

And that is the only thing in which Anko can take comfort. Itachi moves to speak again, and Anko slams his jaw shut with a knock from the top of her head. He makes a small noise, and pushes her tongue through his tight-lipped almost-grimace to keep him silent. The inside of his mouth is coated all with blood from his tongue, caught in between his jaws-slammed-shut. Anko savors the simmering flavor as fully as possible, tongue questing against the back of his throat.

Itachi gags reflexively, tongue rising up against hers. Anko's snakes constrict about his neck.

Instantly, the speed of Itachi's breathing increases tenfold, though the air he receives does not. Anko feels his chest against hers, dancing in broken rhythm. His eyelids flutter shut, and when he opens them next, he meets Anko with a gaze dizzyingly red.

Anko wonders if she is supposed to feel fear.

He's not focusing on her, he _can't_ focus on her, as his gaze takes on the same frenetic energy as his breath. His fingers freeze in tense anguish, unable to gain purchase on the rocks, river-smooth. He takes three sharp breaths for every gagging exhalation. And every time he does, the snakes squeeze tighter. To Anko, he feels even smaller than he did before.

Itachi is suffocating.

He's a tapestry of muted color, tinged blue around the edges, white-grey everywhere else. Draped with black. Red in his eyes and his lip and his mouth. Slowly, slowly (though Anko supposes it only takes a moment), Itachi goes limp under her. She can feel the tension ease, his eyelids slide over his sharingan (how very useless it was today); his head lulls to the side. His breaths stop entirely (maybe; Anko can't be sure). Itachi surrenders.

Anko ignores the erection beneath her.

SHE DOESN'T SEE ITACHI AGAIN. She deposits Itachi in his bedroom when Fugaku is out and Mikoto is tending to Sasuke across the courtyard. His neck is peppered with red spots, not unlike a rash. She leaves him wrapped in her jacket, more or less breathing, more or less conscious again. If his family is curious, it is not as though she is impossible to find.

She never gets a visit; not from Uchiha Fugaku, chief of Konoha's police. Not from Itachi. A package is left with her supervisor; her jacket, unwashed, and a note: "Thank you for saving me."

She and Itachi were sparring when Itachi spun on the river rocks and fell, so the story goes. He would have drowned, Itachi explains only once. The story flies, and carries. It falls into place alongside the rest of Konoha's history, never mind that the river was bone dry. Never mind that Itachi can swim and Anko can't (well, she's never tried). Never mind that it's impossible to acquire that degree of bruising, in that pattern, without serpentine assistance.

No one questions Itachi--and Anko, no one asks.

LIFE FLOWS ONWARD. Anko makes jounin--albeit under special recommendation and conditions. (There are still concerns.) She doesn't know what happens to Itachi, though Ibiki and Kakashi talk about ANBU. She hears rumors, as well--how he is excelling far beyond even his mentor's projections. His keen sense of the sharingan and its refined workings.

Techniques that haven't been seen since the days of Konoha's founding (and Anko's favorite fairy tale, Uchiha Madara).

Anko has her suspicions. But who is she to object? She's wild and unapologetically so, not im_balanced. _It's in poor form to speak ill of the dead (as though Anko has ever cared). Besides, Itachi keeps quiet. He doesn't need to, and Anko wouldn't care if he didn't, but she will return the favor.

The rumors continue, louder than the cicada outside Anko's window all these long summer evenings. They escalate come winter, when there is nothing but rain to down them out.

Eventually, Itachi starts fucking up. He's dabbling in things he can no longer control, and if he realizes it, the knowledge does not stop him. If Konoha realizes it--which they surely do--it does not stop their using him.

Anko's mouth twitches. A smile. They are more alike than she thought.

UCHIHA SHISUI DIES IN SPRING, when the ice begins to slough off the mountainsides to feed Konoha's rivers. New rumors fly, on the wings of ravens--the Uchiha are planning mutiny, though against their own or against the hokage is unclear.

When Itachi leaves Konoha four months later, the glorious scent of blood left slithering in his wake, Anko is none the wiser. With the details too muddled to tell, and the shame too hot for Konoha's inner circle to bear, a shroud is pulled over the tale of the Uchiha clan. Itachi's name is penciled into the bingo book, but his priority is low and no one is eager to find him.

Perhaps they are not alike after all. Anko wouldn't betray family, if she had any. She knows how it feels to be on the receiving end. She knows how deeply that cuts.

_(--At least, she thinks she does.)_

In the end, Uchiha Itachi is lost in the margins of history, and Anko forgets.

ANKO KNOWS OF AKATSUKI. As one of Konoha's tokubetsu jounin, it'd be difficult not to. As Orochimaru's former student, it would be impossible; she knows his tracks. But finding years later that _Itachi_ is one of them is unexpected. (Not that she can define what, exactly, her expectationswere.)

It's Orochimaru she is looking for, actually, when she finds Itachi. There are rumors of his demise at the hands of Uchiha Sasuke, which Anko regards as an assurance that Orochimaru is most certainly alive.

Somewhere.

'Somewhere' is where she finds Itachi. After he greets her (as though it hasn't been nine years since they last spoke, since she raped him (because it was the rape, and not the almost-killing, that was Anko's own personal felony), and four since he turned criminal outright), he asks, does she remember this place?

Not particularly, no. She's just left the village and frankly, she's pretty fucking surprised to have met _anyone_ so near Konoha, least of all Itachi. But shouldn't he be trying to kill her? Not _talking_. They hadn't done much of that even when they were on better terms than they presently are.

"I'm not so unsentimental I'd kill the woman who saved my life," Itachi replies.

...Classically bizarre, Anko thinks.

"That was here. All those years ago. This is the riverbed."

Anko--unwisely, she supposes--takes her eyes off Itachi. The reeds climb to her waist, but the rocks beneath her sandaled feet are oddly smooth. That pile of shattered wood; it could have been a bridge. Perhaps he spoke truth.

"I fell in the river, and Anko sempai jumped in after me." His lips smile, though the rest of him does not. There is such distance between Itachi and the words he speaks that a chill shoots through Anko's body.

"Yes," Anko agrees. She takes a step back. "That's what they say."

"It's a shame she could not save dear cousin Shisui. He drowned." He takes a step forward, bridges what was once a riverbed and is now hardly a dip in the earth.

"A shame," Anko agrees. Another step back. "And too bad Orochimaru is dead; he could have brought Uchiha Shisui back to life. I hear your brother killed him."

Another forward. "Then it seems Orochimaru did not learn Uchiha Madara's secrets, after all. Though it would be foolish to ally with a dead man."

"Foolish in_deed_--" Anko snarls as she spins to the side, explosive tags igniting behind her. _Fuck_ this. Itachi jumps back, too, though the blast hurls him still further.

Then he explodes.

A murder of crows flies up from the rushes where his body lands. They glance in and out of sight, two-dimensional constructs caught in the aftershock of her attack. A bunshin, then.

Anko spits. "I expected as much." She sinks into the rushes, testing the air with her tongue. Prowls along the floor of the old river until she finds another Itachi. He is sitting this time, back against the curve of the bank, hands folded in his lap. His eyes are closed.

"A precaution, only," he tells her. "Jounin at fifteen is very impressive. It's impossible to know what Anko sempai has been doing all these years."

Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing, that's what. "Why trouble yourself with precautions?

"Mass murderer at thirteen," she reminds him.

"So were you," he counters. "And very skilled, I hear. Konoha's enemies were asphyxiated in their own homes. Konoha blamed Akatsuki's Orochimaru because of the snakeskins that were left behind.

"I've always wondered why he would leave behind such obvious vestiges of himself. You still have that jacket, I see."

And it still fits her, that much hasn't changed. Come to think of it, it probably hasn't been washed in all the time since it was returned to her. Anko keeps her history close, these days. Anko shrugs. "Maybe he wanted to be found someday." Itachi's eyes have changed--that's what Kakashi told her--but they look the same. Deep red that fades to black.

"You left Sasuke."

"I did," Itachi allows. He looks tired, Anko realizes. Tired beyond exhaustion. He's lying in the rushes like a corn husk doll and he makes no move to rise. She edges closer. She is near enough that her knife is useful now (it was never meant for throwing).

Anko is afraid, then. Afraid because this is not a situation she understands. No strain of logic could explain Itachi's presence, nor his apparent desire to match words with her (it reminds her of her conversations with Kakashi, and vaguely Anko wonders if he'd learned this of him, years ago). "Why?"--which comes out as a rasp.

"That's what I asked you."

No reason, then. No reason isn't good enough; not for an S-ranked criminal. Not for Uchiha Itachi. She still, however, cannot give him what he wants, so she states fact. "You are what Orochimaru wanted." It seems odd and out of place, now--a lie, almost. But that was the heart of it once, wasn't it?

"I am what Orochimaru could not have," he replies evenly. "One of many things. To make a broad generalization of his... tastes."

Anko wonders if she is meant to find some consolation in that. She doesn't, really, though she understands what Itachi means. Orochimaru is an old thing to her; aside from the reputation he imparted, and the occasional burns-like-death at her neck (old poison, but who's she met that hasn't given her a little of that?), Anko is far removed. Couldn't care less. She folds her hands across her chest (and fingers the kunai she pulls from her sleeve).

_Please_, it sounds like Itachi murmurs, before his eyes snap fully open. Anko is caught in the movement of the pinwheels in an instant, is brought to her knees. It is not painful; and in fact, Anko feels nothing save the dull sense that she is in the midst of losing something. The peculiarity of Itachi's offense wakes a dull panic in Anko's chest. Seconds plod along, but nothing follows.

Itachi touches a hand to her cheek. His nails are a lusterless purple-black, the pads of his fingers as calloused as her own. Nothing so unusual.

Itachi rises on his knees. He is not so small anymore, nor so soft. Even cloaked in Akatsuki's designs, Anko can see how the fabric falls against his body. Tautly thin; a woman's flexibility. He's lost the charming plumpness of an eight-year-old, though Anko supposes he lost that long ago--after all, he'd never had the charming disposition of one. He draws the kunai from her sleeve. "Not coated in venom, I trust."

"There are far more cunning ways to poison someone. I wouldn't stoop so low."

"Admirable." Itachi rakes the tip of her kunai against her abdomen. It snaps the mesh of her outfit with a sound not unlike the gutting of a fish. Anko is careful not to breathe.

Itachi drags her jacket from her shoulders, though the now-threadbare fabric catches on the kunai left up her sleeves, tears. If Itachi thinks anything of it, he doesn't speak. Instead, he threads his fingers through her hair, tugging at the leather tie so that it all falls down like a cascade of needles. Anko feels its coarseness brush her ears and is reminded why she keeps it pulled back. With one hand at her head and the other pressing at her clavicle--almost cautionary; _resist and I understand that I_ will _harm you_--he bends in for a kiss.

Itachi kisses like Anko does (so perhaps sharingan was useful that day, after all--though to Anko the idea is absurd, almost laughable), wets her lips with his tongue before sliding in between them sideways.

Anko returns the favor, almost greedily--which is embarrassing, because what does she want with Itachi, really? His lips taste like old blood, piquant. Familiar. Anko generally finds the familiar distasteful, but this isn't bad.

She slides the zipper of Itachi's cloak down, edging his wire shoulders out from under the thick fabric. Itachi is a skeleton made all from metal, buzzing gears and tempered steel, with skin stretched over the frame. A dark curlicue writhes serpentine down his shoulder; so he was ANBU after all. She rakes her fingers down his chest, nails catching on the mesh of his shirt. No good.

Itachi's hair is longer than she's ever seen it, ragged at the ends like hers but far finer. It gets caught in her mouth as she draws her tongue along his jawline, and Anko recalls a certain myth that dealt with hair like Itachi's. The sorceress was offered a bowl of vermicelli noodles--in it, a single hair.

It did not end well for the sorceress. The hair turned to chains in her stomach.

Anko pulls back.

Itachi kisses her again. He slams his lips against hers and this time breaks skin, and Anko tastes blood of her own. But this much has not changed, at least--Anko will not be beaten at her own game. Itachi opens his mouth to breathe and Anko slides her tongue in.

Inside, Itachi tastes like new blood. His own, not hers. It pools at the back of his mouth like acid. "You're..." she starts, but she can't find words beyond that. He is _what_, exactly?

"Dying," he finishes. The statement is wistful and matter-of-fact all at once, which proves a bizarre combination. The hint of a cough punctuates his word. His lips purse as though he is about to continue, but he stops abruptly. Breathes in. He gives her that familiar probing stare. "You."

He falls into her, and Anko lets her kunai drop into the rushes so that she might catch him. "I," she agrees. "I told you there were more cunning ways to poison someone." She wipes her lips with the back of her hand. She is, of course, immune to most common poisons--and even some of the more exotic--and she supposes she has Orochimaru to thank for that. She is not immune to the vile aftertaste.

"I can kill you still," Itachi reminds her. His breathing is lost in the buzz of insects, the wind in the rushes that hide them from the view of outsiders.

"I know." Gently, she guides his body to the ground, recumbent. She imagines the descent, as brief and smooth as it is, is dizzying. (As she recalls, it was. Like falling into a windstorm.) "Don't worry. I have stronger poisons. You can still die at the hands of whatever means you have devised."

"And if I have no plans?"

She hovers over him, and her body blocks the sun from his face and eyes. "Then maybe you're more like me than I thought. And you'll die when the world least expects it." Anko says nothing of immortality; the notion is foolish.

Even more foolish than before, because today Itachi has all but told her it is true, and possible. It would be foolish to ally with a dead man. But to take guidance from a soul immortal is not such a bad idea. She supposes this is what Itachi means. Anko has made a habit of not taking guidance from anyone, (least of all herself).

She folds her arms across Itachi's chest and breathes in the scent of blood on his lips.

She did not think she would ever do this again.

SUMMER IS IRKSOME, and always unexpected. Wind blows rain over them, presses the rushes down such that they form green masks that plaster to their faces. Then sun again, in time for crickets. Dusk, and more rain falls. The night is a never ending cycle of false starts and finishes.

All the while the reeds whisper _shh shh_, bid the world go quiet. The world does not listen.

ITACHI IS NEARLY TWENTY, by Anko's estimations. She does not kill him; she does not even come close. But had she tried, Itachi would have killed _her_; this much she knows. Nine years pass, but some things are eternal.

"Uchiha Madara believes this is a grave crime," Itachi informs her.

Anko scoffs. She doesn't give a fuck what Uchiha Madara believes. She tires of him. "Sex? Consorting with the enemy? Or doing all of the above, with the woman who almost killed you, and didn't even have a reason."

"Leaving you alive," he says, as though it is part of some vast collective truth.

_(--Somehow, Anko doubts this. She is rarely involved in collective truths, except when she is facilitating someone else's collective lie.)_

"Leaving you alive without good reason."

Then Itachi walks out. Anko is left to piece together the history.

* * *

_"By and by all trace is gone, and what is forgotten is not only the footprints but the water too and what it is down there. The rest is weather... Just weather. Certainly no clamor for a kiss."_

**Beloved**, Toni Morrison.

* * *

_end._

21-22 August 2009

Anko's vermicelli story is a Chinese myth. It probably has a title and perhaps even an author, but alas I know neither.

I um, think the whole smut part of this fic may have failed. And the whole I Swear There is a Point to This part. D: Lamely, the scene I meant to write didn't even make it in! XD But it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the story anymore, and is probably best told from Itachi's POV anyway. So if this is just massively :fail and disappointment, Foxx, please don't hesitate to say so. And I will write this Itachi scene that I meant to do.


End file.
